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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29059809">Musings of a Tired Heart</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Esbe/pseuds/Esbe'>Esbe</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Jeeves &amp; Wooster, Jeeves - P. G. Wodehouse, WODEHOUSE P. G. - Works</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Epistolary, M/M, musings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 08:01:50</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>949</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29059809</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Esbe/pseuds/Esbe</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>This is going to be a series of shorts (very short). It's just some musings on Jeeves' part. Think of it as a diary if it helps. Or a series of letters or something. <br/>Definitely unrequited feelings at this point. Just needed to be written out. Don't worry I do firmly believe these two got together heart and soul and body.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Reginald Jeeves/Bertram "Bertie" Wooster</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>20</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. October 16 194_</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>You brought home a bunch of reddened leaves and said it was Nature’s way of forgetting. Let go of the old for good so we don’t ever remember it again.</p>
<p>Forgetting! That I could forget this pain. This discontent.</p>
<p>I wish I could love another. If only I could find some ease in someone else. Be cared for. Give more. Have more.</p>
<p>More than this. Because there is no more here. There will never be more. No caresses. No smiles. No glances. No ever after.</p>
<p>There is only this.</p>
<p>There will ever only be this.</p>
<p>I wish but I am too human for that.</p>
<p>I glory in the pain. I nourish my bruises and plenish my wounds. I look at it in awe and rub it like a tongue against a sore tooth that one cannot let be. I run sharp nails to abrade a scrape that isn’t allowed to scab.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. November 6 194_</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It’s winter. You’ve taken to dabbing your lips with Vaseline. Your lips glisten in the artificial lights of electric bulbs, vying with the glitter of your eyes. But they lack the intelligence of your eyes. What they have is a softness, vying with your hair perhaps. But they lack the slick smoothness of your hair. What they have are velvety folds. I am obsessed or perhaps a man possessed. Everyone knows that. How could they not when I orbit you so?</p>
<p>You never swig. You take delicate sips. I wish just once you’d press your entire mouth to your tumbler. That I could find a whole imprint of it on the rim of your snifter. If you were just a tiny bit uncouth. Perhaps you’d deign to lick off a stray drop daring to trail down after a less than impeccable sip.</p>
<p>For if you ever did then I would find more than just a hint of your Vaseline on them. That tiny bit of world that mingled with you and rested on the brink of that mouth. Not welcome inside and yet invited by it’s host to the edge. Clinging to it till a mindful sip deposits it on a bit of glass. As fragile as itself. As fragile as the heart that presses itself against that tiny acreage.</p>
<p>For it is true. I have pressed my mouth against it. My lips have rubbed it onto themselves in hope and despair. An ecstasy. A sacrilege.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. February 24 194_</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>You tucked a crocus behind your ear and I am fixated on that shell that begs a nip or a bite.</p>
<p>Would you whimper at the impertinence or demand more?</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Your shoes and hems are muddied and covered with bits of grass.</p>
<p>They will be cleaned diligently and I shall barely grumble.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>But it’s the knees that bother me.</p>
<p>Did you go down on them for a mere puppy or for someone?</p>
<p> </p>
<p>I could growl and scream into that shell for this outrage.</p>
<p>How dare you, sir? How dare you?</p>
<p>And how dare I?</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. March 4 194_</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>I will never have the right to say the words. </p>
<p>I don't have the courage either.</p>
<p>That would make them real in a way that couldn’t be denied. You cannot take deliberate vocalised syllables back.</p>
<p>Neither of us could return from that. I couldn’t unsay them. You couldn’t un-know them; unlearn them.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Perhaps you know. Perhaps I’ve already said it all.</p>
<p>*****</p>
<p>My hands find myriad ways to touch you.</p>
<p>You know how to shave yourself. Your barber wasn’t remotely as ham handed as I made him to be.</p>
<p>There are laundries now that clean and iron clothes.</p>
<p>I neither need to put the napkin on your lap nor to push or pull your chair at the table.</p>
<p>Shirts can have buttons; they don’t need studs. Stiff fronts are fast going out of fashion.</p>
<p>Collars can still be tailored to the shirts.</p>
<p>Open fronts are in vogue.</p>
<p>Your lapels seldom need brushing as you are stepping out.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>But it can all be labelled differently. Like so many barbs filling my mouth. These words can replace the ones I bite back. So we can deny it all. Service. Help. Pride. Work. Efficient. Position. Choice.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Words cannot be denied. We can seldom choose not to hear, or to not understand.</p>
<p>The choice lies with the speaker. With me – in not speaking. In not condemning you to acknowledge what should never have existed at all.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. May 12 194_</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Your evenings are increasingly being spent at home or the Drones’ company and my insistence on proper evening attire has fallen on deaf ears.</p>
<p>You are wearing light suits and soft bosomed shirts. You steadfastly refuse to wear ties, jackets and waistcoats unless ‘in company’ and lounge barefoot, sleeves rolled up and an iced drink in hand.</p>
<p>The sight of your bare neck and feet would have shaken my composure enough. But the iced glass that you touch to your cheeks and neck when you think no one’s watching leaves tiny drops of condensation on your skin. And those drops insist on rolling down your flushed skin – inviting.</p>
<p>One must tear away one’s eyes for fear it may tempt fingers to halt the drops progression or a tongue to trace its path.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. July 3 194_</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>I iron your clothes</p><p>My palm runs over the smooth cotton of your shirts feeling the expanse that will stretch across your lithe form.</p><p>I have all but forsaken starch in the laundry and the softness entices.</p><p> </p><p>Some days your back is drenched in sweat and the shirt sticks to your back. I have seen you shirtless and bareback but the translucence of clinging wet fabric invites and incites far more.</p><p> </p><p>I control a shiver at the touch of your ice-cooled fingers.</p><p>You mean it as a thank you.</p><p>I take it as a benediction.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>That's it folks. I hope I have something more substantial to post soon. <br/>Hope you all are safe and healthy.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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